7 Tips to Escape From Mediocrity…

I spent last weekend at transformational speaker/comedian Kyle Cease’s Escape From Mediocrity event in LA (Kyle was voted Comedy Central’s #1 comedian in 2009, and has evolved into doing “conscious comedy” and transformational events).

I’d met Kyle and his manager at a friend’s mastermind event, and they invited me to come to the program, which turned out to be a really awesome and uplifting experience.

If you haven’t ever seen Kyle, he’s sort of Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer and Jim Carey rolled into one. He’s inspirational, motivational and extremely funny. I ended up giving Kyle and his manager their first experience of Network Spinal Analysis care at the event, and they loved it!

The main message that I came away with from the program, was a fresh perspective on something that I’ve been doing my best to teach, model and apply in my life and work for years:

“Do what you love, not what loves you.”

In other words, stop trying to please others by doing what you think you’re supposed to do to get their love and approval, and start doing what your soul is calling you to do.

When you feel heavy, low and energetically drained, I can promise you that on some level you’re doing something in order to feel “good enough”, to be “right” or “significant” in someone else’s eyes.

If you feel light, expansive and energetically lit-up – when you’re doing something that you really love and enjoy – it’s because you’re coming from a place of congruence and alignment.

Mediocrity is really all about fear. You get scared that you’re going to fail, you get scared that you’ll look like a fool, you get scared that you won’t do it right – so you don’t even bother going for it.

You settle.

I hate settling. I’ve done it a lot. I still do it at times. But, I’m always doing my best to catch myself in the act!

I want to bust myself anytime I’m settling, and ask myself “Really John? C’mon, what’s another possibility here? How can you make this even better? How can you create an outstanding experience in this moment?”

Here are 7 tips that I’ve discovered along my own path to escaping from mediocrity and creating the extraordinary:

1. Don’t settle. There’s ALWAYS another possibility/another way to make something better. It might feel like a remote possibility at the moment, but it’s there. When I’m tempted to settle because it feels too hard, I just remind myself that Michaelangelo carved “The David” statue when he was twenty-six years old!

2. If I can accept whatever experience I’m having as-is without judgement (instead of trying to push down what I’m really feeling and pretend that I’ve got it “together”) I’m freed up to be in the moment, which is where connection to soul, and flow happen.

3. If I’m judging, it’s just because what I’m seeing in another person is something that is unresolved in me. By accepting all of me, I’m empowering myself to express more of what’s authentic.

4. Acceptance doesn’t mean settling. It means getting real. If you’re fat and you don’t want to be fat anymore, you’ve first got to accept that you’re fat (vs. making excuses like “I’m just a little soft”, for example). This kind of acceptance will actually cause you pain, because now you’re now fully associated with what’s really going on. But it will also finally drive you to say, “Enough of this! I’m taking my body back! I deserve more than this!”

5. “Good enough” is not an option. Mediocrity is all about “good enough”. Extraordinary doesn’t even begin to emerge until all of the “good enough” options have been exhausted!

6. Every person I meet, and every interaction I have, I imagine as being the most important in the world. I have a thing that I do, where I tell myself that the person I’m working with or talking to is one of the most important world-changing leaders who will ever live. This makes me step-up, be my best, and deliver the highest caliber service that I can.

7. I forgive myself a lot, and I forgive others. I screw up all the time, and I’m learning to take my own and other’s mistakes less personally. Taking any of it personally just leads to suffering! Instead, I accept the experience as it is, and I say “Next!”

What do you do to escape from mediocrity? I’d love to hear your approach!